University of Vermont Athletic Hall of Fame
Cathy Inglese - Special Inductee, Women's Basketball
In just seven seasons at the helm of the Catamounts from 1986 to 1993, Cathy Inglese, a 2008 UVM Hall of Fame inductee, was the architect of the remarkable turnaround and growth of the Vermont women's basketball program.
She led UVM to unprecedented success with its first two conference titles, in 1992 and 1993, and its first two trips to the NCAA Women's Basketball Championship. While at UVM, Inglese was named America East Coach of the Year three times, 1990, 1991 and 1992. She also earned WBCA District I (New England) Coach of the Year three times, 1991, 1992 and 1993 to appear as a finalist for WBCA National Coach of the Year. Her overall record at Vermont was 120-74 in seven seasons and she had an 8-2 mark in the conference tournament. Success did not happen right away for Inglese's teams.
Her first four UVM teams each had losing records and totaled only 41 victories. The team went an amazing 79-9 over her last three campaigns including a combined 57-2 mark in 1991-92 and 1992-93. In those two years Vermont was the winningest team in the nation and became the first teams to go unbeaten in the regular season in back-to-back seasons. Her final two Vermont teams won a NCAA record 52 straight regular season games and put the program on the regional and national radar screen. UVM was a regular in the national polls and her Catamounts were featured nationally in CNN, ESPN, Sports Illustrated and USA Today as well as in many major newspapers such as the New York Times and the Boston Globe.
Her first teams played before sparse crowds of friends and family and in her last two campaigns, sellout crowds of 3,228 were the norm at Patrick Gymnasium. The Catamounts under Inglese remain the only America East team to earn an at large bid to the NCAA Women's Basketball Championship and also the lone conference program to host a game in the NCAAs. As the eighth-seed in the 1993 'Big Dance', Vermont hosted Rutgers in the tourney's first round at Patrick Gym.
Inglese left Vermont following the 1992-93 season to become the head coach at Boston College. She spent 12 seasons at the helm of the Eagles before resigning after the 2007-08 campaign. The Big East Coach of the Year in 1998-99, she led BC to the postseason eight times including seven NCAA Tournament appearances with two runs to the Sweet 16. Like at Vermont, she led BC to its first-ever national ranking. Ironically the last of her 273 wins at Boston College was over Vermont in the second round of the 2008 Women's National Invitational Tournament.
Inglese was named to the New England Basketball Hall of Fame in 2003 and to the Southern Connecticut State Athletic Hall of Fame in 1992. She also is enshrined in the Connecticut Scholastic and Collegiate Hall of Fame and the Massachusetts chapter of the Italian-American Sports Hall of Fame. She joins four of her former players in the UVM Athletic Hall of Fame, Missy Kelsen '92, Sharon Bay '93, Jen Niebling '93 and Sheri Turnbull '94.
